INDIAN
BLACK HONEYBEE - ENVIRONMENT
News: New honey bee species, endemic to Western Ghats, found
What's
in the news?
●
A new
species of endemic honeybee has been discovered in the Western Ghats.
● The new species has been named Apis karinjodian and given the common name Indian black honeybee.
Key
takeaways:
●
A new species of honeybee has been spotted
from the Western Ghats after a gap of more than 200 years.
●
The last honeybee described from India was
Apis indica in 1798 by Fabricius.
●
Although
Fabricius named the Indian bee Apis indica, it was not considered a valid
species till now.
●
The research team restored the status of
Apis indica based on a new measure for species discrimination in honeybees
termed ‘Radio-Medial Index (RMI).’
● They obtained high resolution photographs of the type specimen from the Natural History Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark, to prove the distinct identity of Apis indica, which led to the discovery of the Apis karinjodian.
Indian
Black Honeybee:
● Apis karinjodian has evolved from Apis cerana morphotypes that got acclimatised to the hot and humid environment of the Western Ghats.
Distribution:
● The distribution of Apis karinjodian ranges from the central Western Ghats and Nilgiris to the southern Western Ghats, covering the States of Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and parts of Tamil Nadu
IUCN Status: Near threatened
Significance
of the discovery:
●
Till date, only a single species, Apis
cerana was noted across the plains of central and southern India and Sri Lanka
as a ‘fairly uniform population’ in the Indian subcontinent.
●
The research has given a new direction to
apiculture in the country by proving that it has three species of cavity nesting honey bees viz., Apis indica, Apis
cerana, and Apis karinjodian, the last being visibly dark in appearance.
●
The ability of the Indian black honey bee
to produce higher quantities of honey,
which is thicker in consistency, opens up new avenues for increasing honey
production.
●
The new find has increased the species of honeybees in the world to 11.